Join Blues beat writer Matthew DeFranks for his live chat at 1 p.m. Wednesday
Get your questions ready and join in at 1 p.m. Wednesday for our weekly Blues chat.
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Do you think the Blues will continue to play Hofer to see if he can be a full time NHL goalie and to push Jordan Binnington to play better and more responsible? Henri Lundqvist said on the TNT telecast that antics like Binnington's would have ruined his concentration during a game. Interesting point. -
I think at this point, playing Joel Hofer is more about how Hofer is playing and less about Jordan Binnington's antics. Hofer was playing pretty well in the AHL before he was called up to fill in during Binnington's suspension, and he's continued that up in the NHL. I was mildly surprised they kept him up in the NHL after the Winnipeg game.Seemed like the perfect little taste of the NHL before sending him back down to help Springfield during their playoff push. A bad outing is bound to happen because it happens to all goalies, why not just let him leave with the taste of a (combined) shutout and let him take that into training camp next season as the backup goalie? That said, I can see how tough it would be to send a guy down after playing the way he did in his first two games up here.As for Binnington, I don't entirely agree with the notion that his antics are making him a worse goaltender. Every one of his outbursts has come with his team losing, and having given up a lot of goals. His game was already bad, antics with the other team have typically come after that.
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I sense an early theme.I think it's worth remembering where Joel Hofer is at in his career. He's only 22 years old. For goaltenders, that's in the infancy of their careers. Igor Shesterkin wasn't a starter until he was 25. Pekka Rinne wasn't a starter until he was 26. First-round picks like Andrei Vasilevskiy, Jake Oettinger and Marc-Andre Fleury reach the NHL faster, but Hofer was a fourth-rounder.He's also only in the first year of being a No. 1 goaltender in professional hockey given all the disruptions by COVID and because he shared the net with Charlie Lindgren last season. It might be too much to ask for Hofer to usurp Binnington next season, but it should be the expectation that he plays more often than Thomas Greiss has this season.Long term? Yeah, Hofer seems to be the plan, especially since he's seven years younger than Binnington.
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Were you surprised that the Blues kept Hofer up and has there been any indication how long they expect to keep him? It seemed like the consensus was that they wanted him to be in Springfield for the playoffs there. Do we think that is still the plan or is he here to stay?
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Joel's a popular man!Yeah, mildly surprised that he stayed up. But I guess that's what the recalls are for. I would be stunned if Hofer stayed in the NHL the rest of the regular season. If that happens, that means he's getting the majority of starts over Binnington, and I'm not sure that's going to happen across a three-week period. Could it? Sure, but I would doubt it.The AHL playoff format is kind of forgiving. Six teams in the eight-team Atlantic Division will make the playoffs, and Springfield is currently fourth. So they should make the playoffs, especially given how they've played recently (17-5-1-1 in the last 24 games). I guess you'd want Hofer down there to re-acclimate to the AHL and go on a playoff run to gain experience in big games that way.
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Do you know whether the Blues expect Snuggerud to sign and turn pro after Minnesota's season is over? If not, I'm not all that sure how the process works with college players. I know at some point college players can become free agents if they do not sign with the team that drafted them, but not sure about the details of that. Let's say Snuggerud decides to stay at Minnesota another year. Does he have the option to sign with the Blues after next season? After each college season? Not sure how it works.
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I don't know what the plan is for Jimmy Snuggerud at the end of this season. His production suggests he may be ready to turn pro, but there's no need to rush him when the Blues are not expected to be contending anyway. Could be best, development-wise, to let him marinate at Minnesota.As it relates to drafted college players, teams have four years to sign those players before they become free agents. So it Snuggerud's case, the Blues have until Aug. 15, 2026 to sign him. The period that teams own exclusive rights on a drafted player depends on where the player was drafted from. College, junior and European players all have different periods before they can become a free agent.Technically, teams can sign a player at any point. But for college guys, that means leaving the team immediately. It happened mid-season recently when Carolina signed Minnesota's goalie, and he left school for the pro contract during the season. A lot of times, both the organization and player prefer to do it when the season ends so the player can continue with his college team.
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I thought Marco Scandella was excellent last night against Detroit. A lot of the things we've seen from Colton Parayko recently, we saw from Scandella last night: aggressively defending, confidently joining the offense, etc. The goal just happened to happen in one of his better games, even if the goal itself was not extraordinary.I'm curious to see whether the Blues want to try Scandella with Colton Parayko on a pair. Could Scandella absorb enough of the defensive responsibility to allow Parayko the freedom to generate more offense of his own? They played a lot together previously, but haven't been together at all this season. With Scandella's hip surgery in the past (though not fully recovered from) and Parayko's uptick in consistency, it feels like a natural time to give it a try.The issue comes when you try to construct the other pairs with Nick Leddy, Justin Faulk, Torey Krug and Robert Bortuzzo (due to respect to Calle Rosen, but I think the coaching staff has made it clear how they feel about him). That's a lot of role and talent duplication there.
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I had no thoughts of Hofer unseating Binner NOW or even NEXT year, with my question. I was mostly asking about his performance so far against NHL talent. He looks to have the foundation of becoming a # 1 goalie. ...which I think is needed to be in place since our current # 1 seems to have some emotional problems that are a problem .
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For sure, Jon. You're right, Hofer does look like the beginnings of a starter in the league. Between the unflapableness, the rebound control, the size, and even the puck-handling, the tools are there. At every stage, Hofer has been good: junior, World Juniors, AHL and now NHL, so definitely a promising step for the Blues.
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These are the ones I could think of off the top of my head.- Gerard Gallant, Jonathan Marchessault and Reilly Smith coming back to Florida with Vegas. This one was a weird one because of all the success the Golden Knights were having thanks to decisions the Panthers made. Even at the time of the decisions, they were looked at skeptically by fans, and then Marchessault and Smith were two-third of the top line on the Western Conference champs.- Joe Pavelski going back to San Jose with Dallas. Probably similar to the one with Perron last night in that he was a heart and soul player that accomplished so much with the team. I remember everyone in the arena had their eyes pinned on the visitors when they were coming out for warmup and the crowd loved it when Pavelski stepped on the ice. Each visit back to San Jose died down a little bit, but they still cheered when Pavelski scored a goal against them, like Enterprise Center did for Perron's assist last night.- Corey Perry going back to Anaheim with Dallas. Maybe the most unique one because Perry was suspended for the trip back to Anaheim due to his elbow in the Winter Classic. So he watched it from a suite and it was clear how emotional he was watching the video and seeing some Ducks people around the rink.- Jason Spezza had a decent one in Dallas when he came back with Toronto.- I would have liked to have seen John Klingberg's return to Dallas, but I had already moved on up here.
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Maybe? I don't know, this is just who Robert Thomas is. Throughout his career, he's never been a goal-scorer at any level. He's always been a pass-first player, and he's the best play-maker the Blues have on their roster (though you can start to make a case for Pavel Buchnevich).In juniors, his career high in goals was 24 to go with 51 assists. In the NHL, he's got 58 goals and 166 assists. It's just who he is as a pass-first player. Can that be frustrating? Absolutely. But it's also what makes him the player he is and a player to build around.
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Krug played w Chara for years on the first pair, I’ve always wondered what a Parrayko and Krug pairing would look like. Obviously HOF Chara especially in his prime was superior to Parrayko. However, maybe a better puck mover helps relieve the pressure, especially if you can’t find a strong second pair defensive D. Faulk also through much of his career was paired with a defensive partner, not a guy like Krug.
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In his first few seasons in Boston, Krug saw a shift here and there with Chara, but most of his time was spent with Kevan Miller (early) and Brandon Carlo (late) when he was with the Bruins. It's not a bad idea to think an undersized offensive defenseman could go with a big shutdown defenseman. According to Natural Stat Trick, Krug-Parayko has played 353:16 together at 5v5 with pretty similar possession numbers to Krug-Faulk, which clocked in at 1840:11.
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Do you think Krug plus one of the firsts the Blues traded for (that is, not our own pick which will be top 10 or 12) would get you anything in return? I'm thinking of the Jori Lehtera plus two firsts for Brayden Schenn as the template here. The Blues need to move someone off that back end, and Krug would be my personal preference due to his cap hit. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that the Blues would or should move a first just to get rid of Krug. They have to be getting something of substance in return.
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So Shayne Gostisbehere was an offensive defenseman cap dump in 2021. He was 28 years old, coming off a season in which he had 20 points in 41 games. He had two years remaining at a $4.5 million cap hit. Philadelphia attached a second and a seventh to trade him to Arizona.With Krug, he'll turn 32 in April and has 28 points in 52 games this season. There are four years left on his contract at $6.5 million, plus has that no-trade clause. If the Gostisbehere trade is a fair comparable (let me know if there are other deals I'm forgetting!), I would reason that Krug would require more assets to dump. Maybe a first is enough? Not sure, especially if there is an expected return to help out in the NHL. Teams also know they have all the leverage and don't have to take Krug unless they get what they want.
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Some of the analytics show all of the Blues primary D being underwater defensively, though some show Parrayko as being close to holding his own after adjusting for tougher matchups. I’ve also seen Clear Sight Analytics suggest Binnington has played better than many of the measures suggests given the large amount of high danger chances. Is there any reason to think the forwards are a major factor in the defensive weakness, but may also improve next year? Much of the Blues season was lost by not being able to salvage a few close games or squeeze out a tie, something better defensive teams seem to achieve.
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There's a few things here that I find interesting.1. You're absolutely right that the Blues forwards have to share some blame in the defensive struggles. Whether that's lackadaisical pressure in the defensive zone, not backchecking, losing a defenseman sneaking to the back door or not supporting the puck while trying to break out of the zone, forwards have a role to play there. Definitely a factor, but I would still place a lot of the responsibility on defensemen, just given how many tap-ins there have been around the crease. That falls on both defensemen and maybe one forward.2. I struggle with goaltending analytics. I like using expected goals, but sometimes they don't account for side-to-side movement and screens in front. The public models at MoneyPuck and Natural Stat Trick say Binnington has been one of the worst goalies in the league this season, which is in line with his standard save percentage and goals against average figures. I haven't seen the numbers at Clear Sight Analytics, but some goalie people in the industry really respect the work they do.3. I'm not sure I'm in line with you about the close games. The Blues are 11-1-6 in one-goal games, which is a remarkable record for a team in their position in the standings (maybe they should actually be further down). Now, I'm sure some of the tight games became two-goal games because of an empty-netter or something, so you may have a few more games in there to throw into the close games category.
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17 and 19 shots the past two games, little wonder this version of the Blues doesn't score much. I know that Berube's coaching style emphasizes quality not quantity but what gives with a rookie in goal for Detroit? Put some shots on the net, boys, at least get some rebound chances!
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Yeah, it hasn't been pretty offensively the last two games. Shot attempts at 5v5 the last three games: 32, 28 and 36. Yikes. This is like a smaller version of that stretch earlier when the Blues went seven straight games without reaching 40 shot attempts at 5v5. Just no puck possession or offensive zone time, and then limited scoring chances.If you just look at Robert Bortuzzo's goal last night, good things come from attempted shots. His came after a blocked shot.
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Should be an interesting playoffs even without the Blues involved. The East is just loaded. Devils-Rangers and Leafs-Lightning should be really compelling series, and then the winners of those will have to face a couple of real heavyweights in Boston and Carolina. The West is also fascinating just because I could easily see any playoff team in the West ending up in the Final. Care to make any predictions or still too early?
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Yeah, it'll be a lot of fun and I agree with what you said about both conferences.I'll take Carolina in the East. I like their path going through the three NY/NJ teams over the Boston path going through Florida/Pittsburgh and then Toronto/Tampa Bay. Carolina defends well and scores enough, but I'm still not entirely sold on their goaltending.Give me Colorado in the West (again). They woke up in first place in the Central by points percentage this morning and that's after a season filled with injuries. With a healthy Makar and a healthy Landeskog, they're still a juggernaut.But on the real -- I have no idea what's going to happen.
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I was thinking the other day that Binnington is getting pretty close to ticking off a third of the league so far. The list I've got:-- Minnesota (Hartman blocker, Fleury almost fight)-- Colorado (O'Connor from this year, and the Kadri water bottle last year, plus the stick swing at Kadri)-- Pittsburgh (glove to Zucker's face)-- Carolina (hitting Staal)-- NY Islanders (bumping Sorokin)-- San Jose (fake punching Karlsson, shoving Dubnyk)-- Dallas (punching Benn, slashing Bishop)-- Los Angeles (getting into it with Clifford)-- Edmonton (dust up with Kane)I think that's it, but who can be certain these days.The telling thing about most of these incidents is that the other team is laughing at Binnington. They don't really even take him seriously when he starts talking to their benches.
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I was thinking (always dangerous)… if Army wants to make some space on the back end & open up some cap space he should call his BFF Stevie Y & see if he’s interested in Krug. He might be willing to waive his NTC to go home (especially after baby #3). You sweeten the deal with one of our lower #1 picks. I’ll take DP & a decent pick in return
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I've thought about this because of Krug's personal ties to the Detroit area. But then I think about it from a Red Wings perspective and it doesn't line up a ton for them. Seider and Edvinsson are the future there, and Walman just re-signed there. Maybe trading Hronek opens up an immediate hole? I can see that, but it's still a squint for me to find the fit with Krug's age, contract and term on that team.I would never put it past Armstrong and Yzerman to make a deal work, though. They know how to deal with each other.
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If Army moves Krug and his contract then he can turn this team around quicker. Maybe he has to package Bolduc or a draft pick to do it. Krug has to ok it or he can be put on waivers and claimed by the trade partner. We got Rosen, Leddy and Faulk can QB the PP. Army needs to be aggressive .
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